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Autism behaviour drop in session and family star!

So this morning, I get up to find Dinky had sneaked into the living room to add too much woodchip to the cage, had found the guinea pig’s chocolate drops and had red them probably too much, but worst of all, she had got a knife from the kitchen and scratched the leather sofa and foot stall! It took everything I had at 6am not to scream at her! I told her to go to her room as I was angry that she had ruined my things, scared the guinea pigs, given them too much food and wasted the woodchip. She screamed at me for giving her such a direct demand so early in the day.

After going through the morning battle, getting her to school through the screams of “My legs are tired!” “I have no emergy” “My feet are burning”. I left her with the TA in the line and went into town.

After treating myself to a mac Donald’s breakfast, I went off to the behaviour drop in session.

I asked about Dinky’s biting, spitting, head butting ect. As I thought I need to find out what drives the behaviour and try and find something to replace the behaviour. If I am honest I pretty much knew what she was saying, however, I am going to be emailed a summary. I can then take that to the TAC and show them that I am taking steps to deal with her behaviour, but it is very difficult. I also wanted to run the family link worker’s suggestion of punishing EVERY incident of hitting! The face of the woman doing the session as priceless! She looked like she was readying herself to launch at the Family link worker but held back to me. She said it was a stupid idea and it wouldn’t work. The only outcome would be to cause both of us a huge amount of stress! I am going to do the ABC sheets to work out the triggers for Dinky’s violence. I know the majority of it is her PDA, and sensory issues, but it would be good to get a proper idea of what is going on for her.

I came back and tidied a little before the Family link worker came out.

I have been doing a lot of research on the nurture group and was very upset at the following statements:

Boxall brought into school a different way of looking at the

behaviour that was getting in the way of the child’s progress.

She focused on children’s early development, on their selfconcept,

on the attitudes they had absorbed and brought

with them into school. She understood the difficulties

presented by most of these children as the outcome of

impoverished early nurturing. Lacking an adequate

experience of being cherished and attended to, for whatever

reason, they were not able to make trusting relationships

with adults or to respond appropriately to other children.

They were unready to meet the social and intellectual

demands of school life, and so failed.

and

Why is the profile so relevant today?

It is widely agreed that children with social, emotional and

behavioural difficulties (SEBD) are the biggest challenge to the

effective running of schools. These are children who do not

respond to teachers’ best efforts, they fail to learn, they can

leave teachers frustrated, quite often resentful and with their

professional confidence undermined. They also spoil the

atmosphere for the rest of the class, consuming the teacher’s

time and energy, diverting it away from children who could use

it so much better.

It was horrible to read. I was outraged! This kind of language absolves the teachers of doing anything to help their students and only suggests blaming the child and their parents for them failing in school.

Dinky is not fulfilling her potential due to her behaviour, her behaviour is the outcome of poor handling and a culture of blame the parent not listen to the parent. It doesn’t call for parental partnership with the school for the benefit of the child. The whole thing is kept secretive and ugly. It is basically internal exclusion.

I phoned parent partnership. The person I spoke to said that this wasn’t the right setting for Dinky.

Then the Family Link Worker turned up.

we did a family star, because I love having my parenting scrutinised over and over again… I didn’t know what to expect after what I had been reading on the boxall profile!

Any way… all of these areas are scored out of 10.

Outcome areas: The Family Star covers eight areas of parenting essential to enabling children to thrive:

Physical health 10

Emotional well-being 10

Keeping your children safe 10

Social networks 8

Education and learning 9

Boundaries and behaviour 9

Family routine 10

Home and money 10

ANNNNND relax.

This star is going to be my ace card when it comes to the TAC. It also will allow me to challenge the boxall profile and explain her behaviour using the PDA book ‘understanding PDA in children’.

So I was happy.

I was even happier when I showed the page I took the 2 quotes from and the Family link worker said that it is absolutely ridiculous and offensive, she completely stands by the profile she had just done and will say tat in the TAC!

I have also been in conversation with the special needs group leader and she is also going to give the school hell and make sure that Dinky doesn’t miss another school trip! (Picture just for Dinky’s school!)

Things are FINALLY coming together, it is amazing how much difference a day makes! Yesterday at this time I was crying and hating myself, I was questioning whether I had done this to Dinky, and I felt like I was less than nothing and didn’t deserve her. Today I saw that actually, despite the crap role models I had growing up, that I am a good mum, and that my best is good enough and that there is nothing more that I can be doing except as I am, chopping and changing the incentives of good behaviour and trying the ABC in order to see what Dinky’s triggers are. Maybe having a whole set of them could help with the paediatrician next month!

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2 thoughts on “Autism behaviour drop in session and family star!”

They did the boxall on Moll as well, I didn’t have a clue what it was for or what it was about at the time and so I have no idea what they deduced from it. Good luck with your meetings at least you have your family link worker on side so that your not totally on your own when fighting these morons!!

thanks Jane,
Yes, I have the family link worker, only she hasn’t met Dinky yet so I think that will reduce the weight she has in the meeting. I do also have the SN group leader who says that nurture is tantamount to exclusion and that she gets the sense that the school are practically bullying Dinky, what is worse it is done through ignorance.

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Thoughts on the crossroads of law, politics and society - for when 140 characters just won't do. This blog contains general information and commentary on legal matters. It is not intended to provide legal advice. This blog discusses the law in England, unless otherwise stated.

Hello, my name is Julia and I’m an adult living with a diagnosis of Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). I also have a diagnosis of ADHD and Psychotic Episodes. PDA is a lifelong Pervasive Developmental Disorder and was first described by the late Prof. Elizabeth Newson in 1980. PDA is an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Despite PDA being older than me (just) there are still massive gaps in its recognition, peoples’ understanding and its diagnosis by professionals. I’m one of the lucky ones and this is my story…….